Shristi Volunteers for Charity Girls Athletic Tournament

HCC Student Shristi wrote about her volunteer work for a charity futsal tournament for female empowerment held by the organization Girls Empowered by Travel. Futsal is a derivative of soccer played indoors with 5 person teams.

HCC Nepal Athletic Tournament I am a student of Mass Communication and Journalism in Trinity College in Kathmandu. I was always looking for some platform to enhance my skills and explore the world. On July 1st, I got this wonderful opportunity to volunteer for the Girl Power Futsal Tournament (a type of indoor soccer) organized by Girls Empowered by Travel Nepal (GET-Nepal) with an objective to provide a platform for young girls to showcase their talents through sports. It was my first time volunteering. I was a bit nervous looking at a huge group of people very excited about the futsal match. I was happily welcomed by GET coordinator, Sajana, and they made me feel comfortable. I was very happy and excited to meet other fellow volunteers my age and get along with them.

I was given the role of tracking the score of the futsal match and report it to the event coordinator, Radhika for tallying, as it was a league tournament. I was working along with other volunteers closely, and that helped me to overcome my shyness. I was happy that this helped me enhance my level of self-confidence.
I never thought that one day’s volunteering would help me to connect with so many other young girls who are inspiring and motivated to work for girl issues in Nepal. I would like to thank Khil for creating this network between GET Nepal and me. I am highly encouraged and motivated to get involved in upcoming events of GET Nepal.

Finally the day arrived and we had to arrive at the venue by 3. We rushed to the models and did the final fittings. By that time, Dinesh Uncle, Hira Aunt and Bruce Uncle had arrived. As my sequence was on the 4th we had a huge rush backstage that let me meet them only for a brief minute and we couldn’t even click a picture together. Show started at 7. After the third sequence we had the models change into our designs. Finally, our design was on the runway, and we walked at the end of the sequence with our showstopper, Simpal Kharel. While walking on the runway, there were a huge number of audiences, included; designers, press media, journalists, photographers, ambassadors, etc. After our sequence, we went backstage and we really had a roller coaster of emotions. All those sleepless nights, stresses, no meal days and all the difficulties we went through were finally over. It was worth everything. This concludes my three years of learning and we had the chance to showcase it to the crowd and people. After our sequence we finally had the time to breather. All along these past three months it felt as if somebody had put on something in our neck as we were suffocating but now it felt as if it had been let go. We could breathe in peace.

After the runway we had a huge feast and that tasted like the best meal that I had for the entire life.